This application claims priority based on U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 60/114,575, entitled xe2x80x9cSystem and Method for Associating Popup Windows with Selective Portions of a Document,xe2x80x9d filed Dec. 31, 1998.
The widespread acceptance of modern word processing systems has increased the demand for text manipulation features. One common and even expected feature on word processing packages and other software applications is the ability to highlight, underscore or otherwise mark regions of text out of an electronic document. The marked region can be made to stand out for emphasis, linkage to network sites, or for other purposes.
One textual markup feature that is useful in some presentations is a popup window, that is, a section of text which appears when a cursor or other onscreen locator hovers over a predetermined section of text. This feature is used in Help menus and toolbars, for example, in which a small upper block of text appears when a given subject or section is hovered over, adding comments or expanding a description of that section. However in available word processing technologies, there is no ability to insert or edit popup windows freely within documents. Other drawbacks exist. More powerful document annotation technology is desirable.
The invention overcoming these and other problems in the art relates to a system and method for associating popup windows with selected regions of a document. The invention permits a user to take a highlighted or otherwise selected region within an electronic document and append or attach to it a popup window with embedded information of a desired type, for display when the document is subsequently viewed in that section. This is accomplished in part by employing freely movable popup delimiter tags, which can be positioned and re-positioned within a document to highlight the enclosed information and associate with that information a popup message, graphic or other information.
An object of the invention is to provide a system and method that allows users to select highlighted regions of electronic documents to insert freely editable popup windows.
Another object of the invention is to provide a system and method that allows user to create more flexible and information-rich documents.